Alpha Wave

By Andrew Demcak

The Elusive Spark: Book Two

Keira Fairchild is running for her life, and she won’t make it far without someone watching her back.

Her powers helped her elude a slave trader, Holcomb, who planned to sell her to the highest bidder, and the deadly Paragon Academy. But now Keira needs some allies and some answers. Who is the imprisoned alien being who keeps contacting her in her dreams? Keira is aided by a group of teens—James, Lumen, and Paul—with powers like her own, and all of them are ready for a fight. The small group must rescue the captive alien and escape Dr. Albion, who seeks to steal their abilities and eliminate them. Survival will mean a desperate struggle, and none of them can succeed on their own.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Harmony Ink Press
• Release date: May 15, 2018
• ISBN: 9781640801943

Andrew Demcak

Andrew Demcak is an award-winning American poet and novelist. His books have been featured by the American Library Association, the Lambda Literary Foundation, the Best American Poetry, Verse Daily, and Kirkus Reviews. He has an MFA from St. Mary’s College in Moraga, CA and is currently the Senior Librarian in Collection Development for Oakland Public Library. He lives with his husband, Roland, in the San Francisco Bay Area. Website: www.andrewdemcak.org Connect with Andrew: [e-mail]

Book preview

Table of Contents

Blurb

Dedication

Acknowledgments

Epigraph

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Copyright

Alpha Wave

By Andrew Demcak

The Elusive Spark: Book Two

With so many hunting her for the power she possesses, Keira Fairchild needs a friend in her corner.

On the run from the Paragon Academy and a ring of slave traders, Keira is searching for answers. Who is the mysterious alien being trying to contact her in her dreams, and why is he being held captive? Keira learns she isn’t alone. James, Lumen, and Paul are teens with powers like her own—and all of them are in danger. They’ve been sent by their alien father to look for Keira. The kidnapped alien needs their help, and the unscrupulous Dr. Albion has a plan to rob them of their powers and destroy them. In the battle that awaits them, standing together is their only chance.

For Roland and Jo.

Acknowledgments

THANKS TO my beta readers, especially Skye Allen.

Beyond the mind is the ‘nature of the mind,’ beyond all limits.... How can we approach an understanding of it?

—Namkhai Norbu, Dzogchen: The Self-Perfected State

1.

STOP! KEIRA tried to scream through the rubber gag, but no sound came out.

The three doctors surrounded her, each wearing a plastic face mask and a contamination suit. They reminded her of industrial robots.

Keira was strapped to a cold examination table, her wrists and ankles in metal restraints. She turned her head from side to side, trying to get a glimpse of the operating room, but the blinding pool of surgical light cast such a small circumference. The rest of the room receded into total darkness. The first doctor stepped toward the table, a silver scalpel steadied in his right hand. She could see the other doctors watching, unmoving, at the edge of the swallowing blackness. Another person stepped from behind them.

Someone is filming me. Now he’s coming closer. I see my reflection in his shiny lens—but something’s wrong. It’s not my face; it’s an alien’s face—those huge dark eyes—that looks back at me. Who am I? Where am I?

Then the sharp blade entered Keira’s arm above the elbow joint. A searing pain shot up her exposed bicep….

Sleeper, awake!

KEIRA FAIRCHILD woke up in a blistering sweat, bewildered, her breathing labored, almost gasping. She turned, wiping her damp forehead, and looked out the dirt-streaked window at the green and red lights of the oil barges drifting slowly into San Pedro Harbor on the outskirts of Los Angeles. She looked at the clock—3:15 a.m.

She opened the window a crack to let in the early-morning air. It was cool and calming. The metallic sounds of the distant buoy bells rang out from across the waters.

She wiped off her upper lip with the back of her hand and tried to forget the nightmare.

That’s the third time this week. The same dream: I’m on the table and they’re cutting me open with that knife. It’s like I’m there, like it’s really happening to me! But it’s not me; I’m an alien in the dream. What does it mean? Totally weird!

Keira rolled over and turned on her lamp. From her bedside table, she picked up a smooth stone box with two golden suns etched on top. It fit neatly into the palm of her hand. She traced the outline of the blazing suns with her fingertip. Each was inlaid with real gold and had six flame points radiating outward. The stone box belonged to her birth mother; that’s what the social workers told her. But none of them said if her mother, or her father for that matter, was alive or dead. Keira had entered the foster-care system as a small child. Ever since she could remember, she’d carried the box everywhere with her. It comforted her and promised a connection to her real family, but it was as much a mystery. When Keira shook it, something inside rattled. But to this day, she hadn’t figured out what it was. She still couldn’t get the box to open. There were no seams or visible hinges, not even a keyhole. All she could get out of the stone box was the tantalizing sound. A sound she knew held the secret to her past and hopefully her parents.

Someday I’ll figure out how to open this damn thing up. I’m going to find out who my real parents are too, and then I’ll go find them. Someday.

Keira put the box back down on the table and picked up her hairbrush. The natural fibers felt good against her scalp as she brushed her shiny red hair. After a few passes of the brush, she placed it back on the table, turned off the light, and went back to her fitful sleep.

GET UP, lazy bones, Mary, Keira’s sixty-five-year-old foster-mother, said as she prodded her from her fetal curl beneath the checkered quilt. You’ve got to eat something before you go to school. I don’t want to hear that you’re not hungry again.

"All right, I’m up. Jesus," Keira hissed back before turning over and pulling the warm bedding up over her head.

And don’t take our Lord’s name in vain.

I wish, just once, you could manage a simple ‘Good morning,’ she said from beneath the quilt.

What? Mary asked, pausing in the doorway.

Nothing….

Keira heard the bedroom door close. She pulled the covers down and opened her pale blue eyes into the burning stream of sunlight coming through the opened blinds.

God! That’s bright.

Keira pulled her feet out of the warm bed, onto the soft carpet, and then into her green felt slippers. She yawned, sat upright, and rubbed a limp hand against her eyelids and cheeks. Keira looked down at her closely bitten nails. They looked awful, the skin underneath them red and cracking.

She opened her right hand and studied her palm. Lines laced themselves together across the space and formed what looked like a small triangle within a larger one. She traced one side of the shape. This is my lifeline, I guess. Funny, there’s a gap in it, like one life ends and then another begins.

Keira got up and unplugged the charging X-Phone she kept hidden under her mattress. It was a pre-ACPA burner that didn’t run off of the government’s grid. Since the Affordable Cell Phone Act passed the senate last year, every US citizen now had a data-enabled cell phone, and free government Wi-Fi covered the whole country. Most people saw this as a money-saving opportunity and thanked the government. Keira saw it for what is was, a tracking device to spy on people.

She pressed her finger on the screen, unlocking the phone. Her secret email account unfolded. She was safe from federal data harvesters. All her info streamed through a channel hidden inside the government’s own Wi-Fi traffic. It was beyond VPN, beyond encrypted. What’s better than hiding in plain sight? She’d gotten the illegal phone off a Copperhead last year in exchange for an eighth of synth-pot.

There was nothing new in her inbox except a message from the Insemenoid fan club about another concert date. I won’t be going to see them anyway. There aren’t enough BitCredits for that. Keira closed the account with one swipe of her finger.

Just then the home screen flickered a little bit. A dark image appeared for a moment, a silhouette. The shape of a small person, like a child, wiggled in, blocking out the app icons. Keira stared down at the phone. As quickly as it had come on-screen, it squirmed off.

What the fuck? Is that some kind of malware? It’s not like I can take this phone in and get it cleaned! I hope it goes away. She tried to put it out of her mind. Maybe it’s a technical glitch. The phone must be getting ready to die. It keeps doing weird things lately. Keira shut off the device.

Her illegal phone was one of the many things she kept hidden from both her foster parents, Mary and Steve. As far as caregivers went, they were strict and misguided with their attention. In the few months Keira had been with them, both were more concerned about whether Keira was smoking synth-pot than if she was happy or not.

She’d been shuffled through the system mainly because of her faulty datachip. Hers never seemed to work properly. All Protective Care children had a government ID chip implanted in the back of their left wrists. It was easier for processing and placement. When she turned eighteen, it would be removed and she’d be issued the standard government adult ID wristband. The chip had been replaced four painful times already, but within a week or so, it would transform from active biosilicate into a static piece of plastic cartilage. Dead and useless. No one knew why.

Keira lifted her black robe from the chair back, slipped it on, and left her room for the hall bathroom. After she locked the bathroom door, she let the robe drop to the floor and she turned on the water in the teal shower. She pulled off her nightshirt and panties and hopped into the warm stream. As the water ran down her back, Keira wondered when she would get her period again; her cycles were wildly irregular. She hadn’t had it for over three months and she certainly wasn’t pregnant.

Keira was still a virgin in spite of herself. Mary saw to that.

I SMELLED cigarette smoke on your jacket yesterday. You know we don’t approve of that, Mary said as Keira, dressed in tight black jeans and a black T-shirt, sauntered into the kitchen.

I’m not smoking. If you even set one foot into the girl’s bathroom at school, you get covered in smoke, Keira said, placing her black leather shoulder bag on the kitchen table. All the seniors are smokers.

Just as long as you don’t start. You’re fifteen, and it’s really bad for you.

Keira wouldn’t dignify Mary’s last statement with a response. Instead she grabbed the LA Times from the counter and glanced at the headlines.

That huge earthquake in Indonesia looks terrible. Those poor people.

It’s God’s way, Keira.

But why would he do that?

He punishes the wicked and the unbelievers. That’s a country full of heathens.

But it doesn’t make any sense.

It’s all part of his plan, Keira.

Keira knew she was entering dangerous territory. This was not a conversation she should be having with her foster-mother. She’d learned early on to hide her real beliefs and to mimic the ones of her caretakers. Developing a false self was a survival skill, plain and simple. Maybe if she agreed with them, she wouldn’t be abandoned again. Maybe she could stay with this family, and they would learn to love and value her. Even if they were loving the part of her that was a complete lie. She’d take what she could get. Love was love.

I know it’s his plan. It’s sad when so many people die at one time.

He moves in mysterious ways.

Keira put down the newspaper, grabbed her purse, and headed out of the kitchen toward the front door. See you after school, Keira said.

Aren’t you going to eat anything?

Not hungry.

"But you’ve got to eat something. You’re too skinny, Keira."

I’ll eat at school, Keira lied as she turned to leave. Bye!

I worry that you’re going to become anorexic, Mary said.

I’m not hungry. See you later.

As soon as Keira was down the block, out of Mary’s eyesight, she produced a red pack of Marlboros, shook one out, held it between her full lips, and lit it. Cigarettes are food, she thought to herself. She walked the rest of the way to San Pedro High School trailing smoke like a long gray scarf.

IS THIS the way to the Vincent Thomas Bridge? Holcomb asked, pointing out the front window of his car.

Keira looked over at the older white man in a BMW, cruising alongside her. Nice car, weird guy. The shiny coupe slowed down and pulled over to the curb. Keira was still surprised by all the male attention she’d been receiving in the last year. At fourteen she’d been just another teenager, but a year later when her breasts came, the guys were suddenly very interested.

What? Keira asked as she tilted her head and glanced at the stranger.

Is the bridge up ahead? I’m lost.

You’re going the wrong way, Keira said, dropping her cigarette on the sidewalk and crushing it beneath her heel before quickening her pace.

Do you know which way it is?

I’m late for school. Sorry, Keira said, then turned right, past the chain-link fence, and walked onto the busy campus. She could feel the stranger’s eyes on her still, burning two holes into her back.

Holcomb brought the car to a stop and parked. He watched Keira disappear into the colorful huddle of high schoolers. An alert beeped up at him from his phone.

Proximity alert: ID chip identified, Keira Fairchild.

I know, Holcomb said to the phone and deleted the message.

Target acquired, he typed into the message field and hit Send.

I hope I’ve found her before Paragon, he thought.

CLASS, TODAY we’ll be studying the details of the rodent digestive system. That means we’ll be vivisecting live rats. Those of you who’ve opted out of this assignment with your parents’ signatures can report to study hall right now, Mr. Hines announced at the beginning of fourth-period Life Science. I don’t want any fussing. Any student without a parent’s signature must complete this assignment, or be dipped in a vat fluoroantimonic acid.

Dipped in what? a nearby student asked.

Fluoroantimonic acid’s a new superacid, thirty times stronger than sulfuric, Mr. Hines continued.

The few conscientious objectors—a perky cheerleader, a young Sikh, a weedy nerd, and a Jehovah’s Witness—left in a small exodus. Keira perched on a hard stool at her lab table with her freckled, brunette partner, Lissa, her only friend at San Pedro High. Neither of her foster parents had ever asked if she had made any friends, and Keira wasn’t about to tell them, either.

On the solid plastic tabletop sat one extra-large Plexiglas jar and accompanying metal screw-top lid with a tiny hole in the middle, a tray of silver dissection knives, two pairs of thick leather gardening gloves, and a wax-lined dissection tray with skin-holding pins. There was also one huge black rat in a tiny wire cage.

I’ll be coming to each table with a cotton ball soaked in ether, Mr. Hines said as he began walking around the classroom. Listen carefully, people. Put the cotton ball in the glass jar, put the rat inside the jar, and seal the jar with the metal lid. Let the rat stay in there for about three minutes. This should knock the rat completely unconscious. I want you to see the living digestive system functioning, not in an autopsied dead specimen. Don’t worry, the rat won’t feel a thing. It’s important you follow all these directions. Let me know if you need help.

Okay, here goes! Keira said to Lissa as she slipped on the leather gloves.

Do you want me to open the cage? Lissa asked.

Yeah, sort of dump the rat onto my gloves and I’ll shove it in the jar.

Lissa picked up the wire cage and pulled the latch, sliding the front panel open. The rat sniffed around outside of the opening.

Now drop it into my hands.

The black rat slid into Keira’s waiting grip. She grabbed it firmly with her right hand. The rat reflexively turned and bit down on Keira’s index finger; its sharp teeth piercing through the leather glove. The pain rushed up her arm. But before she could react, a shower of white sparks began snapping in the air, cracking and popping loudly, all around the rat. It gave out one high-pitched shriek as its greasy body tensed up in agony and then went completely limp.

The whole room was suddenly silent. All eyes were on Keira. She let the dead rat fall to the table. It landed like a beanbag, as if the rat’s internal organs had been turned into sand. Keira pulled off her gloves and examined the fresh bite on her finger. The blood was already gathering in the wound.

What happened? Lissa gasped.

I don’t know, Keira said, looking around the classroom.

It must have been a discharge of static electricity from the air, Mr. Hines said, quickly approaching the workstation. You saw the electric sparks. It’s puzzling, though, because these work surfaces are supposed to be inert and free from static buildup. But that’s what killed the rat. Mr. Hines turned to face the class. Show’s over. Everyone back to work. I’m bringing the ether around now.

What should we do, Mr. Hines?

Keira, go to the storeroom and get another rat for you two, he said. They’re a few more on the shelf in the back. Then go see the school nurse about that finger. It doesn’t look too bad, though. I’ll put this rat in the dumpster. Mr. Hines walked away with the departed test subject.

Keira looked at Lissa. They were both stunned. That was too weird! Keira said as she applied a paper towel to her finger, staunching the flow of blood.

But it was cool! Lissa said, excited by the strange event.

How did it happen, though? It was so random! Keira asked as she looked at her lab partner.

He said static electricity.

"It was so bizarro. You can still smell it in the air."

The two girls paused to breathe in the acrid scent of ozone. Keira’s head was spinning a little bit from the strange experience. It felt like she was floating, like her mind had been set adrift to an unknown location.

But what should we do now?

You heard him, killer! Lissa giggled. Go get another victim!

That’s not funny, Lissa.

Sure, it is.

Keira strolled to the metal door at the back of the classroom—the equipment storeroom. She opened it slowly and went in. The single lightbulb cast harsh shadows in the dark, single-windowed room. Keira heard the rats scurrying around before she saw where they were. She approached the wire cages positioned in neat rows on the far wall. She dropped the bloody paper towel onto the floor. The rats, seven in all, stared helplessly up at her. She looked back at them. It was as if in that moment she was seeing a caged animal for the first time in her life. She suddenly felt the suffering of these creatures. It was too cruel.

I know how you feel, Little Rat, Keira thought as she approached the first cage. Passed around from place to place. And now this—your death—you have no control over.

Keira stood on her tiptoes and unlatched the narrow storeroom window and, with one hard shove, pushed it all the way open. One by one, she lifted and unlatched the first six cages and released the squirming rats into the sprawling juniper bushes on the ground outside.

Keira carried the last brown rat in its mesh cage into the lab, and walked over to the workstation to retrieve her books and purse.

See you later at your place, she said to Lissa.

What? Where are you going?

Out of here. I’m not going to kill this rat. They can’t make me do it.

That’s cool. Lissa smiled at Keira. What do I tell Mr. Hines?

Say I went to the nurse’s office.

Sure… and I have a surprise for you later, Lissa said mysteriously.

Really? I can’t wait. See you then. Keira smiled and kept on going, strolling leisurely right out of the classroom and onto the campus below, not looking back even once.

ASMODEUS HAD his orders from Dr. Albion. He bent his six-foot-five frame over the rusty green dumpster behind the Life Science classroom. He fished through the collected debris. The Paragon Institute had received an email earlier that something unusual had happened to a girl named Keira Fairchild at San Pedro High School.

He lifted the flattened cardboard boxes and soggy newspapers, pushing them aside and looking underneath. He hated getting his hands dirty; he was still adjusting to being flesh. Stinking mortal flesh. Asmodeus looked at his pale fingers and the backs of his hands. They were covered with thin black lines, like his pasty face and the rest of his body. Lines ran everywhere, intersecting and crisscrossing. They marked his skin like an incision diagram.

Asmodeus wished he didn’t have the US Government’s blood oath hanging over him. It was part of the conjuring. If only he could use his infernal powers to sort through all this rubbish, it would be easy. But a contract was a contract. It specified where